Anderson Cooper's interview with Stormy Daniels propelled "60 Minutes" to its highest-rated episode in 10 years, according to Nielsen ratings.
Preliminary ratings, known as "overnights," showed the episode drawing more than twice as many viewers than a typical edition of the show.
The program is expected to rank as the highest-rated "60 Minutes" episode since Barack and Michelle Obama sat down for their first post-election interview in 2008.
The outpouring of reactions after the interview aired suggest that her account of an alleged affair with Donald Trump in 2006 captivated viewers across the country.
Several hours after the interview was broadcast, Daniels' name was still the No. 1 trending topic in the U.S. on Twitter. She was also a trending topic on Facebook.
The sexual encounter allegedly happened a decade before Trump was elected president. But the apparent cover-up is much more recent.
"For us, it wasn't so much 'there was an affair.' That's not as much the headline. For us, it's everything that has happened since and how we've gotten to this point," Cooper said in an interview for CBSNews.com about his sit-down with Daniels.
